[moki]

Originally posted by ryarber:
What is the big deal with Tiger. This is the lamest "major" release I've seen from the OS X line. Please tell me where I'm wrong.

Catapult past Longhorn? I think not unless longhorn really $ux.

As a developer, I think Tiger is probably the most exciting MacOS X release ever. There's some very cool building blocks in Tiger that developers are going to have a very good time with.

[michaelb]

Originally posted by ryarber:
What is the big deal with Tiger. This is the lamest "major" release I've seen from the OS X line. Please tell me where I'm wrong.

Catapult past Longhorn? I think not unless longhorn really $ux.

As someone who first read about Tiger's features in the press, I wasn't blown away. Content searching, yeah had that since On Location (showing my age here). Rippling windows, yeah more eye candy. Konfabulator ripoff, yeah okay if the fanboys want it. Etc, etc.

BUT THEN I watched the actual presentation showing the new features in context. Wow! Tiger seriously rocks.

Spotlight searching is beautifully integrated and extremely powerful - it will do for finding your own stuff what Google has done for finding stuff on the web. Core Image is a geek's wet dream (in a good way) and will lead to some breathtaking apps. Dashboard is so much more than Konfabulator, and will take widgets to the critical mass needed to make them truly an OS enhancement rather than clever shareware hack. Automator brings the power of scripting to everyone.

But the greatest thing was, after each major feature, the magic words "SDK available" appeared. This means Tiger technology is going into many 3rd party apps, not just Apple's. In a year or two, there are going to be some awesome apps on the Mac OS X platform. Awesome apps.

If you seriously think Microsoft aren't rapidly scrambling to examine Tiger for ahem, R&D purposes, it's not the OS that's the lame one...

[Gavin]

I don't think Spotlight is as simple as "Just another interface on the same old content index". This could be THE killer app for business.

It sounds like a database system. This would mean you are not limited to the file system's meta data abilities, any extra info you want can be stored and related to a file. It opens up some very cool possibilities. Add your file to as many categories as you like, as opposed to just making it green. Files could be linked to other files, You could say "this text file goes with this photo and this Excel spreadsheet."

What we have then is a cleaver hybrid of the current filesystem, with its few bits of meta data, and the more powerful database file systems of the future. Maybe better, because it is filesystem independent.

Searches should be instantaneous, unlike with the current file based index which can take minutes to run. Add in rendezvous and you can search every computer on your network. Instantly.

If you add the ACL thing into the mix you could potentially have some very fine tuned control over just who can use a file and what they can do with it. The system could store public or private keys for various files or groups. Joe can look at a report but not print it. Donald can create a memo but not delete it, etc. Great for large companies or government agencies.

I'd guess the SDK has to do with apps registering their data types and content and possibly even extending the system to suit their own needs.

The advanced searching and granular file access rights and permissions are the only parts of Longhorn that the Mac doesn't already have. All the other features are really just catch-up with jag-wire. This beats it to the punch.

So don't just write it off as 'that thing from system 8'. It could be the core of something very big.

[LightWaver-67]

{Somewhat on-topic here):

Steve J. mentioned something in-passing during the keynote when speaking about CoreImage (name?)... he gave a brief plea for developers, specifically Adobe, to utilize these powerful and extensible new feature sets and make the Mac version of Photoshop the better version. (totally paraphrased, but you get my point)

Now... I'm not a developer, nor do I work for Adobe, so I am making generalized assumptions.. BUT: Assuming that ANY developer wants similar or identical feature-sets from it's applications across multiple platforms... WHY would Adobe adopt this approach to tapping-in to CoreImage and utilizing cool things and a differed approach that it cannot on the Wintel platform...? Why would it change it's code-base that I can only ASSUME is making all attempts to be feature-identical for BOTH platforms and have them march-down a developmental road that would start digressing from platform parity...?

Or is it just simpler than that...? Are the two code-bases THAT different anyway and just using this new way of tapping into features that would still be available on the WinPC... just coded differently...?

Again, pardon my ignorance.

[Krypton]

Originally posted by LightWaver-67:
{Somewhat on-topic here):

Steve J. mentioned something in-passing during the keynote when speaking about CoreImage (name?)... he gave a brief plea for developers, specifically Adobe, to utilize these powerful and extensible new feature sets and make the Mac version of Photoshop the better version. (totally paraphrased, but you get my point)

Now... I'm not a developer, nor do I work for Adobe, so I am making generalized assumptions.. BUT: Assuming that ANY developer wants similar or identical feature-sets from it's applications across multiple platforms... WHY would Adobe adopt this approach to tapping-in to CoreImage and utilizing cool things and a differed approach that it cannot on the Wintel platform...? Why would it change it's code-base that I can only ASSUME is making all attempts to be feature-identical for BOTH platforms and have them march-down a developmental road that would start digressing from platform parity...?

Or is it just simpler than that...? Are the two code-bases THAT different anyway and just using this new way of tapping into features that would still be available on the WinPC... just coded differently...?

Again, pardon my ignorance.

The thing I find interesting, is that of all those 100 CoreImage filters, Adobe already has equivalents to most of them anyway.

Unless Adobe were going to do a major rewrite (in Cocoa perhaps) all these 'free' features aren't going to make a difference

However - if you've seen RealPlayer 10 that's a good example of a Cocoa app that has feature parity with the Windows version, whilst incorporating a wealth of Mac only features.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Krypton:
The thing I find interesting, is that of all those 100 CoreImage filters, Adobe already has equivalents to most of them anyway.

Yes but they're not implemented in the same way...nothing's offloaded to the GPU which means nothing can be calculated in realtime.

Do you realize how much more powerful and timesaving it is to work in realtime? If I gotta wait 5 -10 seconds to see the results of a filter and then realize that's not exactly what I want and then tweak the settings on the filter and wait another 5-10 seconds and KNOW there is another app out there than can do all this in realtime, I'd dump whatever I have now and buy/use the other app that does it all in realtime.

I don't care if Adobe uses this or not since I know someone's eventually going to make a Photoshop killer using a host of Apple technologies + custom technologies. But if Adobe knows what's best for them, they'll use CoreImage in PS.

A lot of people are only interested in speed. Even if they've got the latest 3.4GHz or 3.6GHz Intel processor, if Photoshop doesn't apply filters in realtime in a non-destructive way and that Dual 2GHz G5 does, you can bet your ass people will switch to Macs.

Adobe might want to keep feature parity between Mac and Windows but if they're really interested in being the best out there, they'll use CoreImage. Else everything is fair game. They can't whine or drop Mac support if someone else does it better than they do...because they're essentially sending out a different message if they choose to not incorporate the latest and greatest technology into their apps.

I agree though...I was hoping that Adobe would have started a separate code branch after OS X came out. A rewrite of Photoshop using some of Apple's new APIs. But Adobe's recent attitude towards the Mac platform leads me to believe that they've done no such thing and that there aren't any plans to do so.

How long do they plan to keep their current codebase? It's almost 15 years old. Besides obvious OS underpinnings, this is probably the oldest codebase for a commercial product out there. I bet almost every other product that has been around that long has seen at least one rewrite in the last 15 years.

[Adam Betts]

The potential coolest thing about CoreImage/Photoshop is that all CoreImage filters can be changed to Layer Styles for easy modifications in the future

[DeathMan]

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
The potential coolest thing about CoreImage/Photoshop is that all CoreImage filters can be changed to Layer Styles for easy modifications in the future

If Adobe values feature parity between platforms over innovation, they will lose in the long run. I could see a better version of photoshop popping up. Maybe it would start out as a low rez, RGB only website design app. If it did instant, non-destructive filters, and was reasonably easy to use, I'd go that route.

It is in Adobe's best interest to improve its App on both platforms. If they can provide, non destructive filter "styles" as Adam suggested, the could do so on windows as well as on the Mac. It will just be real time on the Mac, and range somewhere between real-time, and laggy-slow on the the pc depending on file size.

This is how features bleed over from the Mac to the PC. Next thing you know, Longhorn is delayed another year, so they can hack in some API for direct graphics communication. And some widgets. That way Arlo can be pissed at Bill and Steve. Poor guy.

[ShotgunEd]

I'm not a Developer, I am a comp sci graduate though.

The tiger preview impressed me a lot. Things like spotlight will give devs the chance to make apps that previously would have taken a lot of coding and a lot of overheads. The same applies to core image, I did a module in Image Processing and we had to code sub-routines in java to apply sharpens and segmentation filters, Core Image does all this for you, built into the OS, and its non-destructive. Quite frankly, this does propel OSX even further ahead of longhorn, which is still a couple of years away from seeing the light of day.

</rant>

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by ShotgunEd:
I did a module in Image Processing and we had to code sub-routines in java to apply sharpens and segmentation filters, Core Image does all this for you, built into the OS, and its non-destructive. Quite frankly, this does propel OSX even further ahead of longhorn, which is still a couple of years away from seeing the light of day.

How many apps do you anticipate will need to apply segmentation filters?

[moki]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Do you realize how much more powerful and timesaving it is to work in realtime? If I gotta wait 5 -10 seconds to see the results of a filter and then realize that's not exactly what I want and then tweak the settings on the filter and wait another 5-10 seconds and KNOW there is another app out there than can do all this in realtime, I'd dump whatever I have now and buy/use the other app that does it all in realtime.

I don't care if Adobe uses this or not since I know someone's eventually going to make a Photoshop killer using a host of Apple technologies + custom technologies. But if Adobe knows what's best for them, they'll use CoreImage in PS.

You hit the nail on the head. Core Image is insanely cool, for a number of reasons, and Apple has implemented it in such a way that it'll only get better as video cards get more powerful.

You can apply a half dozen filters or so (and remember, in the case of CoreImage, "filters" can mean various transforms as well, such as rotations, scaling, etc), and it generates an optimized filter for the GPU to execute. You can then manipulate any one of the filters on the fly, and boom, the image changes.

Insanely cool.

However, my bet is that Adobe does not adopt this technology. If it isn't cross platform, the odds of them touching it are rather slim, IMHO. I do hope to be proven wrong though...

[Mr Scruff]

The problem that I see with Adobe adopting this technology is that to make full use of it they'd have to fork the Mac/Windows codebases totally. Sure they could just allow the use of CoreImage filters in the same way you use the existing plug-in filters, but there would be little point in that (it would just be a faster version of the existing filters, which are already quite fast on new hardware).

To utilise it properly, they'd have to introduce the possibility of creating adjustment layer filters. In other words, a non-destructive, editable filter layer, that can be edited, deleted, or moved up and down in the layer hierachy just like the existing adjustment layers. That would be a major advancement.

But since it would change the nature of filters completely, I don't see them doing this until Longhorn or Longhorn++ is available (which will no doubt offer similar tech). So I think they'll do it, but not until Windows catches up, which is a shame.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by moki:
boom [...] Insanely cool.

Heh.

Been watching any keynotes lately?

"boom."

[ShotgunEd]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
How many apps do you anticipate will need to apply segmentation filters?

Four.

[voodoo]

Just have the stupid little bugs ironed out, namely

1. Remembering finder window positions and view when in spatial mode
2. That weird menu bug thing when you hold down the application menu, slide over to the right opening everything until you get to opening the sound/time/international keyboard widgets - then slide back to the app menus and THEY WON't OPEN. Nor will you be able to choose any menu items in the widgets if you slide over from the app menus..

Makes me feel embarrassed using a Mac when I see this happening.

[JLL]

Originally posted by Mr Scruff:
To utilise it properly, they'd have to introduce the possibility of creating adjustment layer filters. In other words, a non-destructive, editable filter layer, that can be edited, deleted, or moved up and down in the layer hierachy just like the existing adjustment layers. That would be a major advancement.

As far as I remember that was actually planned for CS, but it didn't make it into the final product.

[mika]

Apple:

Provide a _search function_ for keychain.
Allow organizing files in _column view_ according to date, size, kind, etc.




/

[Sven G]

As for the previous thing of Microsoft-style "monolithic apps" vs. Unix-style "small apps that do specific things very well and integrate with each other", it's interesting to realize that there's another, better (IMHO) way: for example, as this Ars Technica review states very clearly about the Kontact Entourage/Outlook-like application:

Kontact is a nice showcase for the advantages a KPart-based application design offers compared to a monolith design. Kontact itself is very new, but the used technology has been in use and proven for a relatively long time. How was this done? Kontact combines a number of existing separate KDE personal information management applications, namely KMail, KOrganizer, KAddressbook, KNotes and KNode, into one unified application, while you are still able to start each of those applications separately. For this purpose all of those applications have KPart interfaces.



What I meant previously indeed was something similar to the above, but, of course, with the OS X equivalents (Mail, Address Book, iCal, iSync, etc.): of course, this could be extended also to other apps, with other "organized containers", and even on a system-wide level (see, for example, an enhanced Dock as a global "starting point"), in order to make the workflow more task-based (but in a better way than Microsoft's implementation, eventually), while at the same time leaving the "classic" tool-based workflow option open for those who prefer it.

All this would also help in order to proceed beyond the application-based way of doing things, maybe...

[Horsepoo!!!]

I don't see this being any different or better than the way OS X does it. All Kontact is doing is taking these apps and shoving them all into one window which makes it essentially like Entourage except using program 'parts' and combining them together like Lego blocks.

[clebin]

I'm also for fixing the stupid bugs. Every time OS X gets upgrade I say this - can we spend a little time on the Finder please?

Can an engineer or two can tear themself away from OS X's most important features like....um... overhauling iChat every release? What about those guys who were upgrading Sherlock on a yearly basis, to make it the useful and widely used application it is today? (I have a number of MacOS boxes telling me what a revolution it is, so I guess it must be true). If they have a spare moment, then maybe I'd like to see my files when I save them.

It's a small thing really, but my Amiga managed to show me an up to date directory listing and so did my Mac once upon a time.

To find my other gripes, open Spotlight and type "Apple neglect most important app"

Chris

[Sven G]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
I don't see this being any different or better than the way OS X does it. All Kontact is doing is taking these apps and shoving them all into one window which makes it essentially like Entourage except using program 'parts' and combining them together like Lego blocks.

It's just that in a default OS X install the only immediately recognizable application-container is the Dock, from which you can directly launch the most basic apps, while you must manually dive into the Applications folder from a Finder window in order to see them all (no default shortcut from the Apple Menu or Dock, sofar): all this could certainly be organised a little better, if apps were in some way grouped by task, etc., as seems to be the case in Kontact-like "meta-applications".

Of course, there could be more original, Apple-like ways of doing this, maybe...

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Sven G:
It's just that in a default OS X install the only immediately recognizable application-container is the Dock, from which you can directly launch the most basic apps, while you must manually dive into the Applications folder from a Finder window in order to see them all (no default shortcut from the Apple Menu or Dock, sofar): all this could certainly be organised a little better, if apps were in some way grouped by task, etc., as seems to be the case in Kontact-like "meta-applications".

Of course, there could be more original, Apple-like ways of doing this, maybe...

You make it sound like it's a very difficult task to open the Application folder.

[gorgonzola]

My 2 cents. Spotlight is a major new feature, and many people are not quite giving it its due. It is much more than just a slightly better search box.

Second, for the end user, part of what is cool about Tiger is what third-party developers can do with it (e.g. CoreImage and Spotlight); it's impossible to know exactly what this could be until much further down the road.

Third, the stuff on Apple's site *is* still developer oriented, because it's just a summary of part of what was revealed at WWDC. Even Spotlight was introduced partly from the perspective of the SDK for it; iChat and Safari RSS were probably the only completely non-developer features they mentioned, and yes, these aren't mind-blowing.

This is not to say that there will necessarily be some major new user-level feature like Expose that is still in early stages of development (though in theory there could be), but there will likely be a large number of small to medium scale enhancements that will add up. My guess is that they chose to demo a few major features for developers instead of lots of smaller-scale improvements for end users (which would make sense).

I really think it is a bit too early to judge Tiger -- especially if you haven't actually tried it out, and even if you have.

The buzz from WWDC seems to be positive, so it's clear that developers are excited about what they can do with all this stuff; cool stuff that developers can do trickles down to cool stuff that users can do.

You may still think it's lame once you get the final version, but what's the point in jumping to conclusions now? Wait and see what happens.

[K++]

Originally posted by Graymalkin:
Are some of you people unaware that you can do content indexing right now in OSX? Jaguar supports only volume-level indexing but Panther supports folder-level indexing. Select a folder or volume, Get Info, and select the Content index panel. Build the index of a folder and it will be fully searchable from within Finder's Find function (Command + F, File -> Find). Once you've indexed a folder you can search through its contents and add as many criteria to said search as you'd like. Go ahead and search for all documents mentioning IBM that were updated in the past week. Finder will do that right this second for you.

The content indexing goes way back to the days of OS 8 when it was introduced with Sherlock. Since then the content searching and indexing feature has migrated into Finder. Spotlight is little more than a better interface than the one provided in Finder currently. Smart Folders are just search criteria that Finder saves. I keep just about everything that isn't a music, image, or movie file in ~/Documents and update my index occassionally. When I need to find a particular file I just use "Content includes: something" as my Find criteria.

What you don't realize is that this isn't mere content searching and it is A WHOLE LOT MORE convenient than what you describe. In short Spotlight works not just on content, but on metadata, and that metadata can be extended by developers so for example your Colloquy(IRC Client) logs could be searchable by channel, server, members present, number of members in the room, size of the log, etc.

It's not just the content searching that makes this "kick you in the face fantastic" but the extensible metadata that lets me, as a developer add tags that are useful for my media type that you can then search on from Spotlight. Imagine typing in Paris, and getting documents created while you were in Paris, thanks to the extensible metadata. That has nothing to do with the content and by your example impossible.

What people need to realize is that what able demoed was the pencil, not the entire works of shakespeare that can be composed through the use of that mere pencil.

[clebin]

Originally posted by gorgonzola:
I really think it is a bit too early to judge Tiger -- especially if you haven't actually tried it out, and even if you have.

Funny how people don't say that when someone comes on says "This is just a beta. Apple will fix this and that in 6 months and just think how good it'll be then!!"

And yet, people had the same complaints ignored 4 years and 4 major releases ago. FWIW, Spotlight looks fantastic. But it's just one part of a wider solution to organising and retrieving your stuff.

To search on something you need to have some idea of what you want. People don't read the news in the morning by going to Google and searching on earthquake. They see a list of news-items and say "Oh look, an earthquake". Maybe they went through a site hierarchy to visit 'World News' first.

Just because it's the internet age doesn't mean it fits in the Google metaphor. Sometimes you need to travel a hierarchy and see list of 20 files in order to decide you like the red abstract pic. With Spotlight? Impossible. With a folder containing 4000 random files? Painful.

Spotlight and the Finder have to work hand in hand. Jobs' (and consequently his uncritical fans') dismissal of the Finder is ridiculous.

Chris

[ShotgunEd]

Originally posted by clebin:
Funny how people don't say that when someone comes on says "This is just a beta. Apple will fix this and that in 6 months and just think how good it'll be then!!"

And yet, people had the same complaints ignored 4 years and 4 major releases ago. FWIW, Spotlight looks fantastic. But it's just one part of a wider solution to organising and retrieving your stuff.

To search on something you need to have some idea of what you want. People don't read the news in the morning by going to Google and searching on earthquake. They see a list of news-items and say "Oh look, an earthquake". Maybe they went through a site hierarchy to visit 'World News' first.

Just because it's the internet age doesn't mean it fits in the Google metaphor. Sometimes you need to travel a hierarchy and see list of 20 files in order to decide you like the red abstract pic. With Spotlight? Impossible. With a folder containing 4000 random files? Painful.

Spotlight and the Finder have to work hand in hand. Jobs' (and consequently his uncritical fans') dismissal of the Finder is ridiculous.

Chris

Exactly, its purpose is not to replace browsing, but is to be used in addition to browsing with the finder.

[movabi]

oh yes, us dumb end users don't count. I forgot, being a photographer and designer means that I shouldn't want the features that make my job easier and faster. OSX is a developer platform sounds like.... Interesting. Performance gains in key areas like the finder don't matter. HMMM. I use photoshop, illustrator, flash, strata, and image catologing programs while trying to sort through massive amounts of files and use some apple extras like itunes, safari, ichat etc. I do expect to see some improvements that many people have been asking for since day one of osx on top of some "patented" technologies that haven't been implemented.

I find a lot of the comments in this forum microsoftish.

If this is a programmers update, i hope to see some of you developers/programmers make more innovative unique programs besides the same old image browsers, clocks, docks etc... and make some interesting graphics and effects programs.

So apple have a widget thang... big deal... that feature is frivolous to me. Performance matters to me. My biggest gripe, the finder. If that is improved and will run on my "ancient" dual 1gig g4 i'll upgrade for just that.

[movabi]

oh yes, us dumb end users don't count. I forgot, being a photographer and designer means that I shouldn't want the features that make my job easier and faster. OSX is a developer platform sounds like.... Interesting. Performance gains in key areas like the finder don't matter. HMMM. I use photoshop, illustrator, flash, strata, and image catologing programs while trying to sort through massive amounts of files and use some apple extras like itunes, safari, ichat etc. I do expect to see some improvements that many people have been asking for since day one of osx on top of some "patented" technologies that haven't been implemented.

I find a lot of the comments in this forum microsoftish.

If this is a programmers update, i hope to see some of you developers/programmers make more innovative unique programs besides the same old image browsers, clocks, docks etc... and make some interesting graphics and effects programs.

So apple have a widget thang... big deal... that feature is frivolous to me. Performance matters to me. My biggest gripe, the finder. If that is improved and will run on my "ancient" dual 1gig g4 i'll upgrade for just that.

[hmurchison2001]

oh yes, us dumb end users don't count. I forgot, being a photographer and designer means that I shouldn't want the features that make my job easier and faster. OSX is a developer platform sounds like.... Interesting. Performance gains in key areas like the finder don't matter. HMMM. I use photoshop, illustrator, flash, strata, and image catologing programs while trying to sort through massive amounts of files and use some apple extras like itunes, safari, ichat etc. I do expect to see some improvements that many people have been asking for since day one of osx on top of some "patented" technologies that haven't been implemented.

What makes you assume that Apple hasn't fixed some issues in the finder? I haven't seen anything that makes me think Apple is ignoring the important stuff for widgets and all that. Tiger is very SDK heavy. That means Apple programmers have been putting in much work. No one is saying that end users are dumb but merely pointing out that end users can't always see the forest through the trees when it comes to product advancements.

[movabi]

I'm not saying that these technologies aren't great... I'm saying that some of the current features need major ironing out... My post is mearly a desire to see and make sure some of the features that people want aren't ommited or skipped for newer technology. New isn't always better. I really would like to know what the 150 new features are... if they are major. As for being developers tools to make the next level of mac apps, that is kinda an alienating us/them mentality. Features that people bring up aren't frivolous and deserve the time of day.

[moki]

The purpose of this release is to make developers aware of upcoming technologies, and to get the SDKs in their hands. I would imagine that a great many things will be changing in Tiger before it is released to the public in a year.

Evaluating this "release" based on anything other than the technical merits of the core technologies Apple is providing is pointless.

[RooneyX]

I'm really hoping Apple will integrate their PIM apps because right now it's a mess. iSync, iCal, Address Book, Stickies and Mail should all be one nicely designed application that I can keep open all the time instead of having to launch several apps. Hit a function key and it appears like Dashboard does, hit it again and it zoom fades off screen. Don't have to hunt in the Applications folder or click several times on the Dock to bring up information and syncing you need quickly.

Integrate Spotlight into it and you'll be able to find appointments, notes, Emails and contacts on the fly.

[thePurpleGiant]

Originally posted by moki:
The purpose of this release is to make developers aware of upcoming technologies, and to get the SDKs in their hands. I would imagine that a great many things will be changing in Tiger before it is released to the public in a year.

Evaluating this "release" based on anything other than the technical merits of the core technologies Apple is providing is pointless.

Exactly. Apple showed off almost (not quite, but almost) the bare minimum of Tiger that they could, to get developers started on a whole range of new features. I have little doubt in my mind that there will be at least one new feature in Tiger that we will be impressed with, if not many. Regardless, I would purchase Tiger even if it did only have the current featureset. Spotlight looks to really integrate things well, and across all apps. And Dashboard will really be quite useful...with the right gadgets of course.

[hmurchison2001]

Originally posted by RooneyX:
I'm really hoping Apple will integrate their PIM apps because right now it's a mess. iSync, iCal, Address Book, Stickies and Mail should all be one nicely designed application that I can keep open all the time instead of having to launch several apps. Hit a function key and it appears like Dashboard does, hit it again and it zoom fades off screen. Don't have to hunt in the Applications folder or click several times on the Dock to bring up information and syncing you need quickly.

Integrate Spotlight into it and you'll be able to find appointments, notes, Emails and contacts on the fly.

I could be way off on this but that's is what I think Core Data allows. If iCall, Addressbook, Mail and other apps have a database for their files then Core Data, it would seem, would allow a client front end to access each of these database files. Therefore you'd have the best of both worlds. The ability to run just the app of your choosing or access multiple db with one client front end. Here's a blurb that seems to potentially point in that direction

Advanced Core Data Learn about the more advanced features of the new Core Data framework, including how to work with multiple persistent stores at the same time, how to use predefined fetch requests and predicates to find your objects, how to get more out of your validation rules, and how to manipulate schemas at runtime.

I find the mart about working with "multiple persistent stores" the most intrigueing. Sounds like developers will be able to build apps that pool together Apples apps into one uber application. This is what www.crm4mac.com does now.

I'd also be willing to bet tha Panther and Tiger are developed by two seperate teams of programmers. Somebody with more knowledge should chime in here but it would makes sense for the development of Panther and it's successor to be developed in parallel. The Panther team would handle Panther and its optimizations while the Tiger team would work on Tiger to make sure it supported the full Panther feature set and more. Thus, when I hear people say "Apple needs to fix the Finder in Tiger" I'm not sure they realize that there is a whole seperate team for Tiger that may have fixed the issue a while ago because it was easier for them to get into the guts of the code and correct any problems. I could be way off but I'd bet that Apple's organizational structure for developing apps is quite interesting.

[Sven G]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
You make it sound like it's a very difficult task to open the Application folder.

Certainly it is not difficult, but neither is the Applications folder (or, rather, the visual "links" to it) too organised: it would be cool to see a more rational - and intuitive - organisation right out of the box - such as in the GNOME and KDE "start" menus, for example (here, in Mandrakelinux 10):





Apple could certainly make something even better...

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by Sven G:
Certainly it is not difficult, but neither is the Applications folder (or, rather, the visual "links" to it) too organised: it would be cool to see a more rational - and intuitive - organisation right out of the box - such as in the GNOME and KDE "start" menus, for example (here, in Mandrakelinux 10):





Apple could certainly make something even better...

Well, if Apple allowed for keywords to be slapped onto apps, internet apps could have the 'internet' keyword, and then all you'd have to do is create smart-folders, shove them into a normal folder and stick that folder into the Dock and you'd have the same functionality as GNOME or KDE.

[Zadian]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Well, if Apple allowed for keywords to be slapped onto apps

Does Spotlight search and find the contents of the Finder comments of files?
That would make Spotlight extremely powerful. Just create AppleScript Droplets (with Automator?) that will append some keywords to the comments of that file.
The possibilities of this would be enormous (including the creation of a smart folder containing all internet apps).

Spotlight could turn out to be the beginning of a very useful content management application - an other way to access the files, not by location but by data and content.
The Finder will remain a file management application.
It would be up to the user which way he will access is files - via content management or file management.
I guess most home users or consumers will start using content management and quit using the finder (for most tasks).

[Zadian]

Originally posted by clebin:
Sometimes you need to travel a hierarchy and see list of 20 files in order to decide you like the red abstract pic. With Spotlight? Impossible. With a folder containing 4000 random files? Painful.

I guess it depends on how you organise our files. Searching 5 or more folders containing 20 files in the finder can be painful too, especially if you don't know what you are searching for.

Most of the time you know what you are searching for. Let's say you search abstract pictures.
Spotlight could help, if it uses the finder comments and you have added comments to all your files. Adding comments can be automated using AppleScript.
Maybe you have added comments to your files describing the content (abstract, landscape..., mostly red, blue, green...).
Or you use an app like iPhoto and have added keywords to the pictures.
Now, just make a Spotlight search for abstract pictures.

If you don't know what you are searching an application like iPhoto would be better suited for finding pictures than the Finder.

Sooner or later the Finder won't be the most important app in Mac OS X. It will be replaced by apps that manage data and conntent (like iTunes, iPhoto, Adressbook), and a system wide search tool that accesses the meta data created by those apps.
The finder will be just an app for file management, for those that need such an app. And there are always situations where you need a file management tool.

It might not be the case in 10.4, but maybe later in 10.5 or 10.6 or...

[sambeau]

Originally posted by Sven G:
Certainly it is not difficult, but neither is the Applications folder (or, rather, the visual "links" to it) too organised: it would be cool to see a more rational - and intuitive - organisation right out of the box - such as in the GNOME and KDE "start" menus, for example (here, in Mandrakelinux 10):

Err, Apple invented that years ago. It was called the Apple menu..

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by sambeau:
Err, Apple invented that years ago. It was called the Apple menu..

No, Apple copied it from Windows.

And the Apple menu was a number of things, but a decent application launcher it was NOT.

Apart from which, the idea is to have something like that sorted dynamically and auto-updated when you install a new application.

-s*

[moki]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
No, Apple copied it from Windows.

And the Apple menu was a number of things, but a decent application launcher it was NOT.

Well, really, Apple copied it from HAM (Hierarchical Apple Menu) -- anyone else remember that old program? Apple eventually bought the code from the developer, and incorporated it into the OS in 1995 as "Apple Menu Options"

It actually was a great application launcher, you could put things in there in any way you wanted to.

[sambeau]

Did we not have desktop tools in a menu before that calc, puzzle etc (I must admit my memory is getting a bit fuzzy now). Could have sworn it was in Macs long before Windows..

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by moki:
Well, really, Apple copied it from HAM (Hierarchical Apple Menu) -- anyone else remember that old program? Apple eventually bought the code from the developer, and incorporated it into the OS in 1995 as "Apple Menu Options"

It actually was a great application launcher, you could put things in there in any way you wanted to.

Well, yes, you could.

And it was buggy, completely manual, an additional layer of interface, and configuration (via a folder in the System folder, fer chrissakes - wtf is that doing in a menu!? - and renaming stuff with spaces in front to get the right order in the menu, etc.) was boneheaded and a total mystery to 98% of the users.

-s*

[Simon]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
...
was boneheaded and a total mystery to 98% of the users.

And nevertheless the large majority of Mac users loved it. It was easy to find, always available and had everything most people needed.

The point you are missing is that it was simple and that most users are not pro users and therefore value the OS totally different than we here do.

IMHO the problem here is not Apple's layout of the FS. Applications and Utilities are perfectly fine. What sucks is that many developers (including big professional ones like MS) aren't able to use packages and still rely on folders that contain tons of text files (manuals, release notes, readme's, etc.), plugins, add-ons and much other crap instead of bundling it all up in a nice little package. If the app folder contained only app packages, you could just have it sit in the dock, right-click it, and bang, there's your quick way of starting apps. Granted, Apple needs to make the listing of such folders much faster and get rid of the nasty lag when you list the contents for the first time (I guess there's some rotten caching going on)...

Files is another story, but I guess Spotlight should take care of that nicely.

[clebin]

Originally posted by Zadian:
I guess it depends on how you organise our files. Searching 5 or more folders containing 20 files in the finder can be painful too, especially if you don't know what you are searching for.

Most of the time you know what you are searching for. Let's say you search abstract pictures.
Spotlight could help, if it uses the finder comments and you have added comments to all your files. Adding comments can be automated using AppleScript.
Maybe you have added comments to your files describing the content (abstract, landscape..., mostly red, blue, green...).
Or you use an app like iPhoto and have added keywords to the pictures.
Now, just make a Spotlight search for abstract pictures.

You don't always know what you're searching for. That's why of all the websites in my bookmarks, only one of them is Google.

How much detail must I go into to describe an abstract picture? Colour, texture, things it reminds me of... I wonder how many people even rate their songs in iTunes, the one bit that isn't done for you (ie. normal, non-forum-type people)

Since Jobs is so keen on iTunes, tell me - when you're looking for a song to play, do you:

A) Browse by genre
B) Browse by artist
C) Search
D) Browse the whole list

Four methods, all involving metadata, but only one of them is search.

So when we have a bunch of files how do we achieve A, B and D?

I'm thinking smart playlists/folders, and also standard playlists/folders. I'm thinking how nice it would be to hiearchically manage those.

It seems some kind of advanced file browser is in order... Hmmm..

Chris

[BuonRotto]

Originally posted by sambeau:
Did we not have desktop tools in a menu before that calc, puzzle etc (I must admit my memory is getting a bit fuzzy now). Could have sworn it was in Macs long before Windows..

That was the original Apple menu in 1984! It held only the desktop accessories to begin with. It changed quite a bit in Classic and in OS X since then. I think people are thinking of some of these later incarnations. A simple menubar item for quick access to Dashboard items seems like a good idea even today.

[JMII]

Originally posted by moki:
It actually was a great application launcher, you could put things in there in any way you wanted to.

Now if only we could get the Dock to work in this way The problem with the current Dock is that is trying to be (and do) two things at once. An application launcher AND switcher. I've always wished the Dock worked more like it's right (documents) side: IE you put a folder named "Internet" there and drop all you internet apps (Mail, Safari, FTP, GoLive and so on) in for easy access. Then you could add more folders based on YOUR on organization system, for example a "Photos", "Utilities", "Drawing", ect. These would work more like the drawers I've seen in some shareware solutions.

However the current Dock is out of control, maybe this is why Apple came out with a 30" widescreen display 'cause in a few years your dock will be 30" wide due to the number of apps running and folders you stuck down there in attempts to organize all those apps and documents :o

[Stradlater]

Originally posted by JMII:
However the current Dock is out of control, maybe this is why Apple came out with a 30" widescreen display 'cause in a few years your dock will be 30" wide due to the number of apps running and folders you stuck down there in attempts to organize all those apps and documents :o

There are alternative ways to organize things. The dock should only be used for applications you use every day, and, if you'd like, apps you use often, but not quite every day. For the rest, it's not difficult to click "Finder" in the Dock and navigate, quickly, to the Applications folder. Oh...and you shouldn't need to put folders/documents into the Dock with Spotlight at your function-five fingertips.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Simon:
And nevertheless the large majority of Mac users loved it. It was easy to find, always available and had everything most people needed.

The point you are missing is that it was simple and that most users are not pro users and therefore value the OS totally different than we here do.

Actually, the point I was making is that the exact OPPOSITE is true.

NONE of the casual Mac users I've known over the past fifteen years ever really got the grasp of the Apple menu.

Several of them had a more knowledgable friend configure the AM for them, but damned if they had the slightest idea how, or why the dividers had folder icons in front of them, or what to do when they installed updated software and one of the links broke.

I put forth that, contrary to your opinion, the large majority of Mac users had absolutely no idea what it was, how it worked, how to set it up, or even that the functionality was there at all.

You have a folder that - as the ONLY folder out of hundreds on your drive - suddenly turns into a menu, but with no way to actually configure it EXCEPT by renaming items alphabetically?

Do you really expect anyone BUT "pro" users to embrace that concept intuitively?

It was a bad hack, done because the spatial Finder was becoming increasingly inadequate for deeper and deeper directory structures.

The Dock has problems all its own (Bruce Tognazzini has trounced it quite thoroughly), but even a total newbie can configure it in seconds.

-s*

[Simon]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
Actually, the point I was making is that the exact OPPOSITE is true.

I understood that perfectly fine.

However IMHO you are wrong. I tried to explain why above.

Basically, the Apple menu (as bad as one can think it is) was a simple and efficient way for most people to put and find stuff they frequently used. I understand your criticism and to a large extent I tend to agree, however we certainly don't represent the average Mac user.